Josephus does not tell us that Christianity is true, and Christians do not need Josephus to tell them that Christ is risen. But Christianity makes claims about things that happened in public history under identifiable rulers, priests, and governors. For that reason, testimony from outside the church matters.
Today, the longing for cultural Christianity on both the left and the right hearkens back to an older version of Christendom that was a mixed blessing for the church in the western world. The cultural mediation of Christian views on created order has certainly benefitted the civilization we’ve inherited. But the gospel itself isn’t something that can be reduced to cultural mediation either. Instead, the gospel as a message stands apart from all human accomplishments and achievements, no matter how beneficial they might be.
The student of Scripture should always have a map open next to their Bible as they read. If possible, they should also travel to Israel, not to make a pilgrimage, but to see the context of the land in which these stories took place. These are not fairy tales made up about fictional fantasy lands; these are stories about real people in real places interacting with a real God.

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It’s the notion of mercy that leads us to the atonement, and it is the atonement that provides a foundational basis for the justification of sinners.
This is an excerpt from “All Charges Dropped! Devotional Narratives from Earthly Courtrooms to the Throne of Grace,” written by Haroldo Camacho (1517 Publishing, 2022).
My words are peanuts compared to the porterhouse of God’s Word.
Increasingly, to forgive is seen as winking at evil, as shrugging one’s moral shoulders, and as being complicit.
Being the baptized just may be the last, great resistance.
The legal record of debt for our sin was canceled because Jesus satisfied the legal demands for us by his life, death, and resurrection.
Walking in the light doesn't entail a spotless moral record but rather an honest appraisal of who we are.
We bring nothing with us that contributes to the preaching or the hearing of God’s promise to us.
At the heart of The Idiot is Dostoevsky's confession of faith and the confession of all Christians.
Vilification of the other is married to the justification of the self.
The spirit indeed is willing and desires bodily death as a gentle sleep. It does not consider it to be death; it knows no such thing as death.
In Jesus, the most totalizing summary of the law becomes the gospel of the one made perfect through obedience.